


Worn Out, the Way We Let it Stay

by stardustedknuckles



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Blood, Canon Divergent, F/F, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Injury, Pre-Relationship, Whump, about kindness and how hard it can be to accept, beau does a growth, but also technically compliant, but everything is painful so, caleb has growth and he's not afraid to use it, painfully, reluctant conversations about feelings, some good good empire sibs discussions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-31
Updated: 2020-10-31
Packaged: 2021-03-08 22:28:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,540
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27294217
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stardustedknuckles/pseuds/stardustedknuckles
Summary: A harsh battle leaves all of Beau's defenses down, and she's stuck on another plane with the one person whose mind works anything like hers - and he's looking for a distraction. It'll end in tears, but not before taking a couple of weird turns through...math?I'm counting this for promptober since it was the motivation to get anything at all posted today. Tagged with the b/y pairing because it's very much about that.
Relationships: Beauregard Lionett & Caleb Widogast, Beauregard Lionett/Yasha
Comments: 26
Kudos: 315





	Worn Out, the Way We Let it Stay

**Author's Note:**

> I've had most of this typed up for like 6 weeks but there wasn't any heart to it. It was just a lot of ow on Beau's part of "oh shit" on Caleb's. But today I had an idea, so here we are.

"Beau. Hey, Beauregard. Look at me. Come on…" Beau woke with a groan, eyes fluttering open and immediately squeezing shut again as her teeth clenched in agony. "Don't move, just stay with me. Oh gods…" Hands fluttered near her, hovering, trying not to touch anything hurt -- it was useless, though, Beau was nothing but hurt. It made up her bones and pulsed in her fingertips, even her eye sockets hurt. When she coughed, a strangled sob fell out with it and her chest seized. Panic clawed its way up in her, and the hands abandoned their caution to grip her firmly and lift her up. She nearly gagged on the blood in her throat, but her airway cleared and she was able to suck in air with less trouble.

She tried opening her eyes again, and found a terrified Caleb looking down at her. He swore softly in Zemnian and tried to reposition her so that he was against the wall with her leaned up against him. "Please do not go again." The arms crossed over her chest didn't squeeze so much as tense together, and Beau gave a small grunt of pain in spite of the appreciation for his caution. "Sorry," he said. His ragged words had a faint echo to them, and for the first time Beau noticed their surroundings. In the light of Caleb's glowing orbs, she could see the damp stone walls of a cave.

Beau opened her mouth to ask a question and had to swallow what felt like a mouthful of blood and try again. "Wh'happened?"

"We got displaced during the fight," Caleb replied. "I saw you go down, and he aimed for you and…I couldn't counterspell in time but I couldn't let you disappear like that." He ran his fingers through his hair with the hand not supporting her. His wraps and his skin were soaked with blood, she noticed.

She took stock of her mouth, searching…ah, there it was. The bubbly, almost burnt fizz of a healing potion. Unmistakable even with a mouth full of iron. "Fuck," she said. It hurt to talk, but it felt worse somehow not to. Her head lolled against Caleb's shoulder as she looked around. "Where are we?"

Caleb sighed, following her gaze. He was calming by degrees; she must have been really bad off. Beau knew he had seen some shit, but he looked almost as terrified now as she had ever seen him. "I think we were thrown onto a different plane," he said.

"Banished?"

"I don't think so. Exandria is our plane. This one feels…wrong. It was snowing and I did not look very hard once I saw the cave." He paused uncertainly.

"Caleb," Beau warned.

Reluctantly, he continued. "It was dunemantic magic," he said.

Beau squinted (ow). "I thought that was time shit."

"Probability," he said quietly. "It's all up for grabs. Not only do I not know where we are, I do not know when either." Fear scratched at his words. It would be difficult, she figured, to suddenly lose a sense like that.

Pain lanced across Beau's side without warning and she tensed hard, crying out involuntarily. Nausea rose in her, and Caleb's hand was a steadying pressure on her back as she fought the urge to vomit. Something was wrong with her face and she knew that if she threw up, that could get much worse.

"Let me see that wound," Caleb said when she finally pulled herself back together. She slapped at his hand as he reached out, but he batted her out of the way without even looking up. If she needed a clear metric for how shitty she was doing, getting knocked aside by the resident wet tissue was an excellent indicator. She hissed as Caleb touched the edge of the wound gently.

"It's fine," she said, but he had that look on his face that meant he was already three steps ahead with a plan.

"I think there is a small pool close to here," he said. "I can't heal you, so I have to keep you alive until the clerics can find us."

Beau scoffed (ow). "You already gave me a healing potion, I'm not gonna croak on you," she said.

Caleb looked at her seriously. "If that wound is infected, you don't know that."

"You're such a mom," Beau complained, wincing as Caleb tried to help her to her feet and shuffled them towards a far wall. Her left ankle wouldn't take any weight; she had no choice but to lean on him fully. Fuck, everything hurt. Darkness hovered at the edges of her vision that had nothing to do with the cave itself. She focused on breathing, on helping Caleb carry her with the help of her one good foot.

It couldn't have been more than a few yards, but it felt like miles before they collapsed together at the edge of the pool, panting in tandem. Caleb dipped his fingers in the water and made a surprised noise. "It is warm."

Beau grinned crookedly and tried not to think of how she must look. "You should have led with that. I woulda walked."

He made an annoyed face, and for a moment they were on solid ground. Then he looked from the pool towards the tunnel that led into It and his face grew pained. "It would not be safe to get your clothes wet as well," he said. "It might be warm in here, but I assure you that is not the case outside. If we have to leave for any reason, you will need to be as dry as possible."

Beau glared up from his shoulder extra pissed because he was right. Some weird-ass plane with weird-ass weather and no way to predict what they were in for. "Whatever," she grumbled. "Just do it."

Caleb nodded seriously and got to work with gentle, clinical hands to help her out of her baggy pants first, pausing when she winced and unsticking the fabric from the bloody spots on her thighs as painlessly as he could. Silent tears fell from Beau's eyes when he had to pull near the biggest gash that ran from ribs to hip, but he said nothing if he saw her crying.

Her breast band came off with less trouble, and then he simply waited and held her upright as she tried to catch her breath, exhausted. His eyes took in her bruised face and half-loose hair with sympathy she didn't have the strength to threaten him over. "Let's get you in, ja?" he said, "and then I will put your hair back together for you."

She just nodded and braced herself for the slow torture that was maneuvering her battered body into the pool without falling in entirely. The water was warm, he'd been right. Not like their hot tub, but unexpected and welcome nonetheless. Immediately, all of her wounds quieted their silent screaming. She still hurt like a motherfucker, but it felt more like a kind of soreness now than a ceaseless, howling whirlwind of agony. She dropped her head against the edge of the pool with a groan, letting her eyes close for a moment. She heard rustling for a few moments, and then Caleb said, "If you wouldn't mind keeping your eyes closed?"

She very nearly opened them just to see the look on his face, but she just grunted assent before adding, "water's great." Once she felt the water stir and still next to her, she opened her eyes to see him wringing out a spare piece of cloth. He had tied his hair higher to keep it out of the water, and it made his shoulders seem somehow skinner.

He got straight to business, holding out a hand. "Arm, please."

Beau winced at the effort but managed to comply, and he squeezed her fingers in gentle reassurance before getting to work on scrubbing gently. It didn't really matter how polite he was about it - everything was awful everywhere - but she distantly appreciated the effort.

After he had tended to every wound he could see and endured every curse Beau knew and a few she made up just for the fuck of it, he let out a breath of something like relief. "I just have to do your face now," he said.

"Fuck off," said Beau tiredly.

"Beauregard, you are covered in blood."

"But nothing cut me," she said. "I just got hit in the face really hard, and I'm a little concerned that if I breathe wrong I'm going to actually swallow my nasal bone, so please. Don't."

He hesitated. "You look the way you did when I found you."

Ah. When he thought she had died, right. She glared at him. "You're a real big baby, you know."

He looked away with a rueful smile. "I promise not to touch your nose," he said.

"I'm not responsible for what happens if you do." She closed her eyes as he approached, using just the fingertip of the rag to brush gently over her forehead and dip back into the water almost immediately. After the third dip, she frowned just a little. "That much blood?"

Caleb's voice was strained. "You have no idea. You are a mess." He jerked back in apology when a gentle probe of her left eye revealed something fractured, but aside from that it was several minutes of what would have probably been soothing ministrations if her nose hadn't still felt like it had been singled out to feel every wound she had ever gotten at once.

Finally, the rag lowered and didn't come back up. "I think it is mostly gone," Caleb said. She opened her eyes to find him visibly calmer, wringing the rag out in the water with his shoulders not so far up around his ears.

She really must have looked bad. "Thanks," she said, feeling a little awkward.

He nodded. "Thank you too," he said. "Having something else to focus on helped me calm down a little." He motioned for her to turn a little and settled behind her, carefully tugging at the ribbon holding her hair.

"Did you think of a way out of here?" His fingers were gentle as they coaxed her hair down, massaging a little at her scalp in a way that most people outside of the nein would have been surprised he knew how to do.

"Nein," he said, "but I think Jester's messaging will probably still reach us, and it is likely they will call on Essek for help."

She was surprised; as plans go, this didn't seem up to his usual standards. "Sounds like a lot of ifs," she said. "You really okay with that?"

He laughed nervously as he singled out a strand of Beau's hair where it went from long to short. "Of course not." He began to braid, careful not to tug. "I am about thirty seconds from overthinking myself into a panic attack at all the ways it could go wrong and we could be stuck here forever."

"Oh good," Beau remarked, "I was starting to worry."

"But," he added, ignoring her, "I am not here alone, and as the only one of us who is able to function physically at the moment-" he didn't even attempt to move as she tried to reach back and pinch him, halting with a hiss as her shoulder locked up "-I am unable to simply sit and despair."

She sighed. "I don't think anyone is safe from Jester's messaging."

"That is what I am counting on. These things are difficult to tell, but I do not think the wizards we fought were of a high enough level of expertise to displace us much in time, only space."

Beau winced as his fingers found a sore spot on her scalp, winced again when wincing aggravated her nose.

"God, fuck," she hissed.

"Sorry."

"It's not you. Well. It is, but. Fuck it, it's fine, everything just hurts."

He was silent for a long moment, but it was not an uncomfortable silence. Well. Except for the discomfort all over her body. The initial entry into the water had been a respite, but now it felt again as though this were the only level of pain she'd ever known. The comparison wasn't there. There was only now, and now hurt. Maybe Caleb had been onto something with the talking being a distraction.

She sighed. "Wonder what the others are doing right now."

Caleb "hmmed" in thought, his fingers sure and gentle. "Well, assuming they are back in the town, they are looking for a way to contact Essek. Jester is probably trying to decide whether it is better to use her messages on him or on us. She will get some advice from Fjord and choose Essek, most likely." A gentle tug. "Though it will be hard for her to not check on us."

"She's a good person," Beau said quietly. "They all are."

Caleb skipped neatly over her moment of weakness, and whether it was because he was avoiding joining her in it or for her sake, she was grateful.

"Yasha is probably worrying." There was genuine affection in his voice, but not enough to cover the hint of a tease.

Never mind, fuck him.

"Naw," she said. "She's more practical than that." Caleb made a placating noise that Beau wasn't sure she liked the tone of. "What?" His turn to sigh now. "Spit it out," she said.

His fingers stilled. "Because you are in no state to hit me, I will ask. Do you truly not see what is going on with Yasha?"

He was right. She would've clocked him. But she just felt exhausted and the thought of trying to pick up her arm made her fucking face hurt for some reason, so she said, "I see a lot about Yasha. It just doesn't make any sense."

Over, under, over, under. His knuckles brushed the back of her neck. "Is this the part where we get into the self-loathing?" he asked lightly. "Because I can meet you there, but I am not sure you will win."

Beau managed to keep from bristling, but only because it would hurt. "I'm not going anywhere," she said. "It just doesn't add up. She's guilty she stabbed me while brainwashed, is all."

"And the poem?"

Beau twisted to look at him and ignored the pain that shrieked through her. "How did you know about that?"

He laid his hand gently on her face and turned her back around, unraveled the braid that had been compromised. She resisted only enough for show. "Jester told me she was planning to give you one, but said nothing about what was in it."

"Yeah, well." Beau's face was hot. "That's what I don't get." She could feel him waiting, the gentle expectation of him in the air between them. Her reflection stared back at her from the still waters. "It was…sweet." That felt like a lame word to use, but honestly she hadn't been able to take any time and try to sort through what it made her feel. Resentful, mostly, but she knew that wasn't fair. It was a diversion she'd accepted too many times not to recognize now.

Caleb's voice was quiet, no trace of teasing. "And you do not know what to do with that."

She pushed her hand slowly through her reflection. "I really don't, no." And it was true. She barely knew how to accept Caleb's hands in her hair right now, or the healing from the others. Well, she did, but it was by telling herself it was because it made her useful - that it was a bigger benefit to the group if she weren't a dead weight.

She'd been with them long enough by now that she was starting to suspect that might not be the case. Maybe it never had been.

"I can help, I think." He said with a caution and a confidence that caught Beau's attention. Confidence from experience, caution…for her? "I have been thinking through much of the same," he continued. "I have found it helpful to bounce these things, and would be glad for the opportunity to do so with you."

Something uncomfortable prickled at her to detect the way he had led into this. Masterful, really. He was turning into something useful, baiting her.

But he was also sincere, and they had nothing better to do. "Sure," she said. "Tell me, oh wise one. What am I feeling?" She trusted him to ignore the sarcasm.

"You are afraid," he said simply.

Beau scoffed. "Of Yasha? Dude, I spend half my time proving I'm not so she'll stop feeling guilty."

"Not of Yasha. Of kindness." Silence. "I do not think I am wrong," he said after a moment. "I have long held the belief that there is nothing more terrifying than having no say in the worth others see in you. Have you realized it?" He started a new braid.

"Realized what? Specifically."

"That we do not define our own worth."

What the fuck did that mean? She tilted her head just a little. "What the fuck does that mean?"

"It means that people like you and I, people have built our lives on running and hiding, have a tendency to only deal in equations where we hold all of the variables." His voice was clear. Whatever he was building up to, he was certain of it. "We trust our own work and our own perceptions and nobody else's."  


"Yeah, well," she shot back. "The only people any of us can count on is ourselves."

The words hung brittle in the air - they had tasted wrong even as they left her. "I didn't _leave_ because of you," she added lamely. "That's gotta be trust." That didn't feel right either, and Caleb let her sit with it for a moment without comment before continuing.

"You stayed because you still felt you could deal with our pity," he said flatly. "Because you could not prevent us from seeing what we did, but you could _endure_ how it felt. That is the neutral option."

Beau's face burned. Was she being reprimanded? "How did we get here from fucking kindness anyway?" She snapped. "What does this have to do with Yasha?" She knew she sounded petulant, just as she knew somewhere in her that there was something coming she didn't want to face. But there was nowhere to go, and whatever else might be the case, she really did trust the scrawny bastard sitting behind her with his hands in her hair in the middle of buttfuck whoknowswhere. Whatever that meant.

"We have all learned to let people in to some degree." He said it like a soothe, and Beau hated that it did make her feel a little better to have her work over the last few months acknowledged. "What happens if you believe her?" he asked. "If you take all the information you have - and I know you have it, I have seen your mind, Beauregard - and you accept that Yasha is sincere in her feelings and you jump?" Beau tensed. "Yes, after this part," he said. He tapped her shoulder, managed to find a spot that didn't hurt to do it and she kind of hated him for it. "After this. The defensiveness, the urge to bite and to run. We have tried that, Beauregard, _what happens next?"_

It was getting hard to breathe, like there were words Beau was choking on. "She could change her mind," Beau blurted.

"She could." His voice was firm but not unkind. "Anyone could. But she is not anyone."

"I can't," Beau said. "I…if I jump, I can't do anything if…why would anyone put themselves in that position?"

Caleb's thumb rested on her neck. "Beauregard." She stared hard at her reflection, shoulders trembling. "You did jump. Off of a precipice," he said. "Albeit one slightly more literal than the one you find yourself on now. You planned to catch yourself then, and I know you could have. We all knew you could have done it with no help." He pressed in gently. "But what happened?"

Beau's voice choked. She could taste blood, but it was old and thick with snot now.

"She caught you," he said. "You didn't even have to ask." His voice got quieter. "The trouble with only seeing yourself in an equation is that you assume there are only zeroes around you, because zeroes are all you have ever known." He sighed. "The trouble is that we are not the only ones who grow and change. And those zeroes, those variables…sometimes they let us know them, after a time. And then they are not variables. They are constants that can build new things with us."

Beau was crying now, quiet tears that came without permission and felt weighted with the rubble of whatever it was Caleb had just smashed. And who cared? She was tired, she was bleeding, she had been beaten within an inch of her life. Why shouldn't the rest of her take a hit too? "Fuck, man," she said. "Why you gotta be so perceptive and shit?"

He hesitated, and then she felt him lean forward and carefully, slowly wrap one scarred arm around the front of her shoulders. His other hand held her hair still, keeping the braids protected. "You are as perceptive as I am," he murmured. "I am just asking that you consider all of what I know you have seen, and consider for once what is possible instead of what has already been solved." She felt him smile a little against her. "I suppose in that area, I have somewhat of an edge. I have been weighing what is possible my whole life."

She sniffed. "You made me cry talking about math, dude. I can't believe it. We're such fucking nerds." She found it even harder to believe that it had made any fucking sense. And yet.

She was more resigned than surprised to find that within his ridiculous metaphor, there was truth. The nein had become constants at some indeterminable point - for who they were to her, not just people to be counted on to save their own asses.

It was exciting. She was exhausted.

It occurred to her in a dim, prickly sort of way that maybe being beat to shit and too tired to argue had been the only reason she'd been able to listen at all.

A funny feeling pushed its way into her mind, and she had just a second to shrug Caleb off with an upheld hand before Jester's voice pierced her thoughts.

"Beau? Beau if you can hear me, we have Essek working to find you. He says he knows this magic and he might be able -"

Beau smiled. "Hey Jes," she croaked. "Caleb thinks we're on another plane and a couple seconds out of sync." She thought for a second. "We know you've got us."

There was no reply, but Beau wasn't worried. If Jester had messaged them, it was only because she had been able to make a plan with only two messages.

"She's getting better at those," she said out loud. "Slowly."

Caleb's fingers were at work tying off her hair, brisk but gentle. "I take it they are hot on our trail, yes?"

"Yeah," said Beau. "They got Essek."

"That is good." He finished, drummed his fingers lightly on the knot. "We should get dressed," he said. "If they are coming, I would like to be somewhat presentable."

"You think they're coming tonight?"

Caleb was already looking for places to put his hands and help her out that wouldn't hurt. It was a lost cause, so she steeled herself and pushed up and out and let him catch her when her arm predictably gave out halfway through. But she had made it out enough that all he had to do was pull, so that was something.

"See?" he panted when he had her sitting up. "It is better when you can account for others. Including exactly how much you have to help them pull their friends out of holes with weak little noodles for arms." He groped for their clothes, all pretense apparently forgotten. He had several angry scratches down his back. They glowered at Beau and gave her the feeling that the dunamantic magic was not the only thing he had taken for her.

As she watched him, she realized: he'd been a constant for a long time to her, too. But at the same time, _constant_ wasn't quite right. It wasn't that he didn't change - that they all didn't. It was that they changed in ways she could quantify and account for. Rely on.

Was that the same thing? She was too tired to care.

Caleb threw on his pants, hesitated, then added just his coat before turning with her things. She waved a hand at him before he could go on again about numbers and helping. "Just get it over with," she said.

"Ja."

****************

Essek, predictably, was extremely efficient. Ten minutes almost to the second after he appeared, the three of them were falling through nothing in a way that felt different to Beau, like she hadn't realized she was cold until she was warm again.

She didn't have time to think about it; she was suddenly standing on the familiar stone floor of the Xorhaus living area, and her ankle gave out a second later. Caleb made a grab for her, but he was just as spent as she was and her vision hazed white at the pain of his grip before -

She blinked, confused when her body informed her through its screaming that she was not collapsed on stone, but rather was being gently lowered to the ground by two strong arms to rest against something warm and solid and safe. She felt a hand on her forehead, and a moment later there was a terrible grinding radiating through her skull as the bones in her nose set back into place. Her vision cleared, and Beau found herself staring into the exhausted and battle-smudged face of Yasha.

"Beau, are you okay?" Her eyes might have been red around the edges - it was hard to tell.

Beau grinned at her, knowing distantly that it had to look at least a fraction as loopy as she felt at the sudden reduction of pain in her face. "You caught me," she said.

She wasn't imagining the red this time, but it was finding its way to Yasha's cheeks instead.

"Of course," Yasha said, like there was no other possible way this ended. "I was waiting where you would be."

"Yeah," Beau managed. "Of course." And then the tears came again.

Fuck it, she thought as Yasha picked her up easily and carried her up to her bed. Maybe she was just done in from the day's work, but it felt possible that maybe, just maybe, a part of her had known - or at least hoped - Yasha would be right there. And maybe that wasn't stupid of either of them.

After all, it fit the information she had.


End file.
